Greece says Turkey must lift war threat to get access to EU defence funds

ATHENS (Reuters) -Turkey must lift a 30-year old war threat against Greece if it wants Athens to consent to Ankara accessing European Union defence funds, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday.

Greece and Turkey, NATO allies but historic foes, have been at odds for decades over a range of issues from airspace to the extent of their maritime boundaries and ethnically-split Cyprus.

In 1995, the Turkish parliament declared a "casus belli", or cause for war, if Greece unilaterally expanded its territorial waters beyond six nautical miles in the Aegean Sea.

"If Turkey wishes access into European defence financing tools, the legitimate concerns of both Greece and Cyprus should be taken into account," Mitsotakis said, referring to projects such as the EU's new flagship arms-buying fund, Security Action for Europe (SAFE).

"It has been 30 years since the Turkish National Assembly voted on the infamous casus belli. I think that 30 years later, the time has come to directly ask our Turkish friends to take it off the table," he told Skai radio.

Mitsotakis said he would convey the message to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan soon, citing improved bilateral ties.

The Turkish government was not immediately available for comment.

Asked about Greece trying to keep Turkey away from EU defence projects, a Turkish defence ministry source said earlier that any attempts to disregard Turkey's importance for European security were bound to fail.

"Carrying bilateral disputes to multilateral platforms and putting forth an approach aimed at excluding our country is both a step that is not taken with good intentions, and not a smart one," the source said.

Ankara and Athens have been exploring whether they can start talks aimed at demarcating their maritime zones. Mitsotakis said that a high-level meeting between the two countries will take place in the coming months.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Angeliki Koutantou in Athens and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Conor Humphries)